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  " That will not do it," came Claybore' s emotionless voice. The officers turned to see mechanical legs scissoring back and forth to bring the torso and head into their map room. The eye sockets in the fleshless skull glowed a cherry red. Silvain straightened, anticipating a sudden lance of death. None came.

  He relaxed slightly. This battle did not go as he anticipated and he did not want Claybore blaming him. To shift the accusations of culpability he needed a lever. His opportunity might come soon with Kiska less and less able to reason rationally.

  " Master, your will is all," cried a now docile k' Adesina. The wildness remained in her eyes but it was tempered with: what? Silvain tried to understand what went on in the woman' s mind. That brain was a capable one. He had firsthand evidence of it in her planning for the conquest of Bron, but other things fluttered and distracted her, things not reasonable or even sensible.

  " Of course it is," snapped the skull, jaws clacking in a mockery of human speech. " I have just annihilated one of their parties as they tried to sneak into Wurnna." The words came slower, more carefully chosen. Silvain' s attention perked up. The dismembered sorcerer did not tell all. Who had been destroyed? Martak? The spider? Would Claybore be openly boastful if he had eliminated those two major impediments to his regaining his body?

  Silvain decided that, had Claybore been victorious over the young mage, he would never mention it in front of Kiska k' Adesina. He knew of her psychopathic need for personally killing the man and monster who had slain her husband. To blunt such a valuable instrument as k' Adesina was out of the question.

  Alberto Silvain relaxed even more. If this truly meant Martak and Krek were dead, that made the defeat of Wurnna all the more certain. Martak had been far too lucky in their brief encounters; whom the gods favored with such luck, they tended to be enamored of. Silvain played it as safe as possible in dealings of this magnitude. Crossing the gods was as unthinkable as spitting on the skull grotesquely propped up on the armless and legless torso.

  " No frontal assault," declared Claybore. " Now. Give me the plan that will succeed."

  Silvain started to speak, to cover for his companion, but the woman raced into a full battle plan that had to be contrived on the spot. And for all its hurried and incomplete qualities, Silvain again marveled at k’ Adesina’ s genius.

  " The flanks are weak. We gain the heights of the mountains and fire down upon them. A few troops will be enough. The canyon leading to the front gates of Wurnna is protected by Iron Tongue' s magics. Down that corridor must go an attack based on sorcery."

  " Yes, I quite agree," said Claybore. " Since that devil Martak used the ebon dragons and fire vultures, I have been reconsidering my own role."

  " Can you conjure creatures to rival those?"

  " Of course I can," Claybore said irritably. The depths of those limitless eye sockets began to pulsate with ruby light. " There are spells to counter such minor illusions. I plan something more. Yes, something vastly more imaginative and deadly."

  " Patriccan and his minions can add their feeble powers to yours, master," said Kiska. " Every spell, no matter how tiny, can aid us in this great endeavor."

  Silvain felt a momentary giddiness. How alike k' Adesina and Claybore were. Both improvised on the spot and both were geniuses, twisted and lacking totally in conscience. His position in such company became more precarious by the instant, but he had no other choice but to remain to the end. His world devastated by Claybore' s power, he had to cast his lot with the sorcerer or die. It had been rewarding enough, as long as he didn' t think about the death and destruction he ordered. In a way, it was only retribution.

  His world had been killed. Why not kill others?

  " Silvain," came Claybore' s cold words. " What do you contribute to this scheme?"

  " Master, you have summed up the finer points so well, only small details remain to be worked out."

  " Such as?"

  " The troops commanding the mountain slopes and looking down into Wurnna must be equipped with some weapon capable of diverting attention. Something magical, perhaps? On my last world, we used fire elementals to power aerial machines. When they fought, they opened ducts, allowing the elemental' s flame to flare forth. Such a minor application might even bring about Wurnna' s capitulation."

  " You want the troops to command fire elementals?"

  " Command? No, master, but something as potent will be required if they are to be taken seriously." Silvain sensed the sorcerer' s instant antagonism toward such magics being used by common troops- or even by Kiska' s captive mage, Patriccan.

  " Equip those troops with catapults. I will prepare pots of stone burning fire. Will that occupy those in the city?"

  " Master, you will be invincible."

  Silvain looked at Kiska and made a tiny motion with his head, showing displeasure with her ready acceptance. He cleared his throat, working to phrase his thoughts properly, so as not to offend Claybore.

  " Master, such would work, but the effort required getting such assault engines up the cliffs might take weeks. May I suggest that you authorize Patriccan to use magics to shove boulders off the mountaintops? This requires little effort after gaining the heights."

  " I want Iron Tongue. I want what rests in his mouth. It is mine! All else is: is mere game. Get that tongue and your reward shall be immense. Fail and you shall rue the day. Do what is necessary."

  " We will not fail!" cried Kiska k' Adesina.

  " The magics you have authorized will overwhelm the remnants of Wurnna, Master." Silvain bowed low as the mechanical carried Claybore from the room. On the floor where the mech had stood pooled oil from a leaking joint.

  Silvain stared at the empty doorway for some time, then turned back to the charts, pointing out vantage points for k' Adesina' s approval. While part of his mind worked on the details of conquest, a larger portion worried over the irrational feeling that this battle would be his last.

  " The troops are ready. They will not fail us." Kiska k' Adesina proudly surveyed the assembled rows of soldiers. Silvain eyed them with less than optimistic eyes. The troops appeared beaten, having spent too long in the field, been under fire too often. The dragons that had roared and devoured both officer and enlisted alike sapped courage sorely needed for a real offensive against Wurnna. Convincing even the field officers that victory would be theirs became increasingly difficult. The battle would have to be joined soon or the entire force would fall apart under its own fear.

  " You have done well," Silvain lied. He idly wondered why he bothered with these games. There was little conviction in aiding Claybore in his goal. All Alberto Silvain could say was that Claybore still appeared the most likely to be victorious- and Silvain always bet on the side of the strong.

  " Thank you," Kiska said, her eyes blazing with demonic light. She clutched at his sleeve and pulled him toward her. The needs she conveyed so primitively almost overwhelmed the man. A musky smell hinted at the woman' s level of desire. Silvain wondered if this came from imminent battle or something else.

  He smiled, his lips curling upward slightly. It was the power k' Adesina worshipped, the need for revenge driving her to it. But which was means and which was ends? They mingled in a heady brew for the mousy- haired woman.

  " Come, let our officers attend to the final preparations. We must confer. In my quarters." Silvain pitched his voice low. Before battle it always relaxed him to find a willing woman. With Kiska k' Adesina, he had one more than willing. She was a panther springing on her prey.

  Barely had he entered the canvas flap to his tent when she swarmed over him, bearing him down, smothering him with her barbaric affections. Revulsion flared and died in a split second. Silvain needed this contact as badly as the woman. What matter that she was as crazy as a wobblebug? Top command in Claybore' s force offered few chances for pleasure.

  Silvain took his now, k' Adesina giving as she took.

  Passion locked them for a long time as their crotches met and ground to
gether, their bodies strained and sweated, their pulses pounded like drums in their foreheads. Their desire abated slightly, then built to a fever pitch once more. Neither held back. Raw, naked lust boiled forth as they completed their coupling.

  " We will find Martak and I shall have his ears first. Then I will pluck out his eyes. No, no, those I save. Next I' ll flay him alive. Then out come his eyes." The woman cackled, over the edge of insanity once more.

  Silvain pushed her away, sitting up and searching for his grey uniform. He wished she hadn' t spoken those words so closely on the climax to their sexual acrobatics. His agile mind now worked on what had been going through her head as they made love. He didn' t like the possible routes her fantasies might have taken as he drove himself deep within her yielding flesh.

  " Claybore will require our presence for last- minute details," he said, his needs sated. Calmer now than he had been in some time, inner pressures resolved, Alberto Silvain became again the perfect soldier with no doubts or hesitation about what he must do in the hours to come.

  " Claybore. Yes, yes, you are right." The naked woman leaped out of the rude bed and began drawing on her uniform. In other circumstances Silvain might have found the sight of the creamy flesh erotically enticing. Now he felt- nothing. It was as if all emotion had been drained from his body and mind. Step springy and soul dead, he sought out his master.

  Claybore twitched slightly. The mechanical carrying his torso and skull obediently bent forward at the hips in a completely inhuman display of flexibility. A wire- driven arm lifted and cogwheels ground together in a noisy clatter to move charts off a large wooden table. With care more appropriate for carrying a babe in arms, the metal fingers closed on a tiny clay tablet and moved it to the edge of the table.

  " Careful, fool," snapped Claybore. The mechanical continued to move the tablet to the spot ordered by the master sorcerer. " There. There is where I desire it." The metallic fingers opened and left the tablet propped up slightly so that the empty eye holes in the skull might peer down on the flat clay surface.

  Light churned and blazed in the pits of those eye sockets. Red, blue, then green light erupted to bathe the inanimate clay slate. For long minutes nothing happened, then the slate took on an eerie glow that radiated from deep within. It shook slightly with a vibrant power that manifested itself as deep humming sounds.

  A picture formed on the featureless tablet.

  " Ah, there it is. The product of my dealings with the demon. Lan Martak, you fool, to think you could oppose me. All you have done is delay me, irritate me, make me angry!" The last words rose in a crescendo of hatred. The full spectrum of the rainbow blazed in the mage' s eye sockets. Claybore calmed himself to study the scene.

  The tunnel opened near the walls of Wurnna. It was here that Martak had thought it possible to sneak back into the walled city with three loads of the power stone ore. Claybore chuckled to himself. Martak was such a fool. He had never learned that nothing went unobserved in the realm of magic. Every spell, no matter how minor, caused " ripples" to form on the fabric of the universe. Those sensitive enough to the " ripples" might trace them back to their source.

  Claybore had known from the start about the mission to the valley of spiders, of Noratumi' s miners and the three demons summoned to help power the heavy ore carts up the steep mountain roads. He had known all and sent one of his allies. The green demon had done well. While the dust from the power stone cloaked even this magical vision, Claybore saw the havoc wrought.

  Men and women lay crushed and ripped apart like so many marionettes with their strings clipped. The two lead wagons had wrecked, and he was sure that the third one plugged the tunnel. In that tunnel would be the dead bodies of Martak and Inyx and the meddling spider, suffocated from the choking dust.

  " A fitting end. They thought to defeat me with that power stone. Instead, I turned it against them!" The sorcerer gloated for only a few more seconds. He had other uses for his all- seeing eye.

  The scene shifted rapidly to a vantage high above his own camp. Spiraling downward with gut- twisting speed, he focused just inside the roof of Silvain' s tent. There he witnessed his two top commanders passionately locked in the rictus of sex. If he had the power to so move his skull, the mage would have nodded. This worked better and better for him. Let their human frailties bind them more closely to one another- and to him.

  Silvain' s role would become clearer as the day wore on. Let him grab what frail pleasures he could.

  He had hesitated in telling k' Adesina of Martak' s death. Hatred drove her, made her a better officer, gave her the reckless abandon in the field he would require to regain his tongue from that usurper in Wurnna. She held sway over Patriccan, and that sorcerer would be needed for the final assault. Claybore needed k' Adesina' s allegiance. He would not inform her of Martak' s demise.

  While Claybore thought that Alberto Silvain guessed that Lan Martak and the others had perished, to him it meant little. Promise him nothing more than hydraulic release of his passion and he would remain quiet.

  For Claybore it was all so simple. Use one against the other. Toy with their emotions and bind them the closer.

  " Now," he said aloud, the word ringing through the emptiness, " now is the time. We attack. And soon I will be able to speak- and to utter all the power spells now denied me!"

  The slate hardened, the picture vanished. As the mechanical bearing Claybore' s body turned to leave, the magically spent tablet crumbled into grey ash.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The green demon squawked as it worked to spin the rear axle faster and faster. Lan Martak' s first reaction was to grab, to physically hold back the runaway ore wagon. Then common sense and his newfound powers took over. No man, no matter how strong, could possibly slow that load. Instead, Lan reached down within himself and teased the dancing mote to life. The point of brilliance had become his guide, his companion, his source of power in realms he had yet to fully explore.

  The savagery of the situation instantaneously communicated to the light mote. It blazed with indignant power, then flashed off, out of Lan' s line of sight.

  Its response came too late. The crazed green demon smashed its wagon into the rear of the second one. The power stone surged up and out of the wagon, its momentum barely checked by the collision. The resulting roar almost deafened those in the tunnel. But that was the least of their worries.

  " The dust. I can' t breathe," cried Inyx. She choked and gasped as billowing dust raced toward them from the wrecked wagons.

  Lan knew full well that suffocation would be a merciful death compared to what might happen if they too deeply inhaled the power stone dust. His mote of light had failed to stop the demon' s suicidal mission, but it now served in a completely different fashion. Like a membrane drawn over a drumhead, the light diffused and formed a curtain between Lan, Inyx, and Krek and the source of the danger.

  " It' ll be all right. Just hold your breath for a couple seconds." He looked at the way the curtain of palely shimmering light held back the dust and fragments of stone flying at speeds faster than he could track. The way the ore reacted reminded him of corn tossed into a campfire. Tiny explosions recurred at random, sending pieces hurtling outward. Every time one of the power stone shards hit his magical curtain, it exploded into actinic brilliance.

  " How long will that continue, friend Lan Martak?"

  " I don' t know," the young mage admitted. " But we' re safe as long as the shield is in place."

  " Safe? How can you say that? There are men and women on the other side dying because you used some damned demon who double- crossed you!" Inyx raged, but he knew it wasn' t directed at him personally. She hated the idea of being unable to help the others trapped in the raging maelstrom of power stone.

  " While I do share friend Inyx' s concern about the others," said Krek, " she and you both miss an important point. Claybore knew of our excursion. He senses magics just as you do. Even one of little or no training, as you are, is c
apable of detecting a spell in use."

  " He can' t ' see' us now, no matter how good he is," said Lan. " The power stone is setting up some sort of continuous reaction. The magics are all jumbled. The energy locked within the raw ore is prodigious. With it we could have easily defeated Claybore. Now, it only serves to shield my own magic use."

  " Then turn your spells against Claybore." Inyx stood defiantly. Dust coated her face and turned her into a chalk statue. Krek stood to one side in the narrow tunnel, shaking and brushing one leg against another in a vain attempt to remove the same dust.

  " If I could, I would. But he remains too strong. Our best course is to go on out of the tunnel, see if we can salvage any of the power stone, and get inside Wurnna' s walls as quickly as possible. Let Iron Tongue activate it and then we can attack Claybore."

  " Perhaps this is a suitable opportunity to use your power against Claybore," suggested Krek, " but in a more restrained fashion."

  " What do you mean?"

  " Spy on his camp. Learn of his troop preparations. We spiders care little about such things, but you humans value such oddments of information. Though why, I cannot say." Krek sank down, legs curled about him, hardly more than a dark lump in the narrow tunnel.

  Lan didn' t bother answering. He split off a portion of the shield blocking out the power stone dust and sent it streaking through the nonworld it inhabited and into the air above Claybore' s camp. Through this aerial porthole he witnessed the grey- clads moving to mount their attack. Lan lacked control over the sky- spy, but what he saw chilled him. The troops marched with more determination than he' d have believed after his dragons had grazed among their ranks. Claybore- or k' Adesina or Silvain- had instilled a battle fever that would carry them to their deaths on Wurnna' s battlements.

  The brief glimpse of an exposed chart carried in the hand of an officer made Lan shake his head. The canyon walls on either side of Wurnna would soon be scaled and the heights occupied. None but a sorcerer might use those heights to advantage, but Claybore and his mage- assistants knew enough spells to destroy Wurnna, given the chance.